books.google.com - "The chase for the double-helical structure of DNA was an adventure story in the best sense. First, there was a pot of scientific gold to be found--possibly very soon. Second, among the explorers who raced to find it, there was much bravado, unexpected lapses of reason, and painful acceptances of the...https://books.google.com/books/about/Genes_Girls_and_Gamow.html?id=V5XuAAAAMAAJ&utm_source=gb-gplus-shareGenes, Girls, and Gamow

Genes, Girls, and Gamow: After the Double Helix

"The chase for the double-helical structure of DNA was an adventure story in the best sense. First, there was a pot of scientific gold to be found--possibly very soon. Second, among the explorers who raced to find it, there was much bravado, unexpected lapses of reason, and painful acceptances of the fates not going well. The early 1950s were not times to be cautious but rather to run fast whenever a path opened up--nuggets of gold might be lying exposed over the next hill. As one of the winners with a fortune much, much bigger than I ever dared hope for, I could not stop moving. There was more genetic loot to be located, and not joining in the further hunt would make me feel old." --from the preface Immediately following the revolutionary discovery of the structure of DNA by James D. Watson and Francis Crick in 1953, the world of molecular biology was caught up in a gold rush. The goal: to uncover the secrets of life the newly elucidated molecule promised to reveal. Genes, Girls, and Gamow is James Watson's report on the amazing aftermath of the DNA breakthrough, picking up where his now-classic memoir The Double Helix leaves off. Here are the collaborations and collisions of giants, not only Watson and Crick themselves, but also legions of others, including Linus Pauling (the greatest chemist of the day), Richard Feynman (the bongo-playing cynosure of Caltech), and especially George Gamow, the bearlike, whiskey-wielding Russian physicist, who had turned his formidable intellect to the field of genetics; with Gamow--an irrepressible prankster to boot--Watson would found the legendary RNA-Tie Club. But Watson--at twenty-five already the winner of genetic research's greatestjackpot--is obsessed with another goal as well: to find love, and a wife equal to his unexpected fame. As he and an international cast of roguish young colleagues do important research they also compare notes and share complaints on the scarcity of eligible mates. And amid the feverish search for the role of the still mysterious RNA molecule, Watson's thoughts are seldom far from the supreme object of his affections, an enthralling Swarthmore coed named Christa, the daughter of the celebrated Harvard biologist Ernst Mayr. Part scientific apprenticeship, part sentimental education, Genes, Girls, and Gamow is a penetrating revelation of how great science is accomplished. It is also a charmingly candid account of one young man's full range of ambitions.

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LibraryThing Review

User Review - P_S_Patrick - LibraryThing

Girls, Genes, and Gamow, is not as good as the Double Helix, but is still an interesting account of some important years of genetic discoveries. It covers the years following the big discovery and the ...Read full review

Genes, girls, and gamow: after the Double helix

User Review - Not Available - Book Verdict

This second autobiographical work by Nobel prize winner Watson provides additional details of his personal life and experience during and after his and Francis Crick's discovery of the double helix as ...Read full review

About the author (2002)

James D. Watson is president of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. A member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society, he has received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Science, and, with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 1962.